Boardroom update

Good afternoon and welcome to everyone from Barnsley, who are making their first ever visit to the Checkatrade.com Stadium today.

I’ve got to start by mentioning Tuesday’s performance against Doncaster, which, of course, was bitterly disappointing. Everyone at the club – players, management, supporters and the backroom staff - feels a result like that and in a way we’re fortunate that we have only had a couple of days to dwell on it before attention turns to this afternoon.

The only way we can go forward is by sticking together. We still have 16 games – more than a third of the season to go – and we’re by no means down and out.

We still have to play a lot of the teams at the wrong end of the table, as well as sides contending for promotion, so there will certainly be a lot to play for in every one of our remaining matches. They are all cup finals. The table doesn’t lie, we are where we deserve to be but that doesn’t mean with a collective effort, however tough that might seem in the wake of Tuesday night, that we can’t do something about it.

We lose Joe Walsh for the first of three games today following his red card. The club will discipline Joe and I’m sure he felt he had let everyone down when he woke up on Wednesday morning. His absence means opportunity for others and I am sure Dean will get the correct response this afternoon.

The news that the Premier League had negotiated a new TV deal worth a staggering £5.1bn has dominated the football agenda this week.

The Premier League makes solidarity payments to Football League clubs and we can expect, as a League One club, to receive around £100,000. It definitely is a case in football these days of the rich getting richer but we are where we are.

Let’s hope more of the millions find their way down to the game’s grassroots so we can encourage the development of more home-grown talent and make our game at all levels vibrant.

We are looking forward to the visit of the current leaders Bristol City on March 7 and, on police advice, this fixture has been designated all-ticket for away fans. Bristol could have a total allocation of 1,800 and, having taken 5,000 plus to MK Dons last Saturday we expect them to sell all their tickets.

Although the game is not all-ticket for Crawley fans, we would advise you to buy in advance because we expect it to be our biggest gate and busiest game of the season.